The Life After
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Things are different now that Sam's back.


_This story first appeared in _Chinook 4 _(2006), from Black Fly Press_

**The Life After**  
K Hanna Korossy

"So, what happened to you back there?"

They were heading back to the motel, the pair of goblins dead somewhere behind them, but not without leaving them thoroughly muddy, scratched and exhausted. It seemed to take Sam a moment to refocus from the dark trees rushing by. "What're you talking about?"

"I broke left to cut the first one off, and you just stood there instead of going right. What, did you forget Basic Strategy 101?"

"No, I didn't forget. I just thought…" Sam trailed off.

Dean glanced over at him, curious now. "What?"

A serious smile flickered over Sam's face. "I guess I was expecting Dad to go right."

Dean didn't say anything, turning impassively back to the road. He hadn't expected that one, but maybe he should have.

Sam was watching him. "Does it ever throw you, hunting without Dad?"

"Me? Naw—I'm used to hunting in a pair, remember? Now, after _you_ left for school, that took some adjusting to." In a lot more ways than just how they hunted.

Sam's mouth crept upward again with a little more enthusiasm. "You missed me?"

Dean snorted. "Please. I missed having a second gun at my back."

"Uh-huh." Sam's knowing look made Dean's expression twist with chagrin. His brother had always been too smart for his own good.

The car fell into quiet again. The motel was close enough that Dean didn't bother turning the radio on. He yawned widely, the silence adding to his fatigue.

Sam spoke up after a thoughtful minute. "Dean?"

"Hmm."

"Am I like Dad?"

That brought him awake again. Dean threw him a puzzled look. "You mean besides the stubborn streak as wide as Texas? What brought this on?"

Sam shook his head. "I just wondered if having me here instead of Dad was a lot different."

"Well, Dad has all the answers and actually wants to be here doing this stuff and doesn't give me grief about it," he answered without thinking. "But other than that? Two peas in a pod."

Sam was silent.

No, Dean realized a moment later, Sam was hurt.

That was actually where Sam was the most different from John. His little brother's sensitive nature drove Dean nuts, raised questions about the ethics of what they did, bled for the victims, and dared to follow his dreams. It had completely changed the way Dean hunted, and, well, he still wasn't sure what he thought about that.

Except…

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_"Dean, those look pretty deep." _

_He didn't have the strength to shrug Sam off, but he tried. "Quit fussing, it's just a couple of scratches." It probably would've been more believable if he hadn't been paler than some corpses they'd seen. _

_They'd been hunting what had turned out to be a very vicious wildcat in Colorado. They hadn't known until they'd come face-to-face with the animal that this wasn't their usual kind of creature, but by then it was a little late to back off. Sam had shot the animal in the head, but not before it had jumped on Dean, clawing his shoulder and bruising him from his neck to his hip. They could have gone to a hospital, their story legitimate this time, except for the fact of having no money. Dean had insisted he'd be fine, and Sam had finally bundled him into the car and taken him back to the miserable little room they'd rented._

_Sam had tied his own shirt over the claw marks and kept pressure on it with one hand all the way back to town. There, he'd half carried Dean into their room, turned up the heat, and helped him peel his clothes off to get a better look at the wounds. They were somewhere Dean couldn't easily treat himself, not to mention the weakness that made his hands heavy and fumbling, so he'd gritted his teeth and sniped at Sam as his brother cleaned and stitched the wound before wrapping it. That was about when Dean had finally passed out from blood loss. When he'd finally woken up, he'd found himself tucked into bed, Sammy sitting nearby, anxiously watching him. _

_"You're not gonna start bawling on me, are you?" he'd asked with forced casualness, because the look in Sam's eyes had taken him aback._

_"Don't flatter yourself," Sam had shot back wearily, and smiled._

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_

Dean had only found the heap of bloody ban­dages buried in the trashcan the next morning, after learn­ing it was two days later than he'd thought.

The last time he'd been injured with his father, John had driven him back to their room and dropped him off at the door, asked him if he'd be okay, then gone to meet with someone about a possible future job. And Dean hadn't thought twice about it until now.

Sam slept less deeply than Dad, as if the fresh loss of Jessica pained him more. He barely ate enough to feed a squirrel, instead of an army like John had. He read books for pleasure that had nothing to do with their job, and liked tea more than coffee. He was a pain to watch out for and too innocent for his own good and thought about stuff way too much, usually getting all touchy-feely when he did.

And for all his lingering worry about their dad, it had been a long time since Dean had felt the kind of joy he did being back on the road with his kid brother.

"Sam," he said.

His brother looked over.

"I wouldn't trade ya."

Sam blinked, started to smile.

"Unless I got a really good offer. Like a vampire slayer—she'd come in handy. They're always hot, too."

Sam told him succinctly what he could do with himself, and Dean laughed.

Message sent.

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Sam stepped into the steaming shower and gratefully turned his face up into the stream. Finally. Those goblins had been nothing compared to the dirt and branches they'd crept through, and it felt like all the mud in Montana was sluicing off him, down the drain. Cold mud, too, and he shivered once as the heat of the water began to penetrate his body.

He started reviewing that evening's hunt in his mind, picking it apart for what they should have done better this time and could do better next time. One of those lessons could end up saving their lives, and that was reason enough.

The hot water was soothing. Sam shut his eyes under it and concentrated on the feel of the drops, the steam settling into his lungs and deepening his breathing. He didn't even notice he was starting to drift until movement outside the shower snapped him out of his half-doze.

Sam smiled. "Jess, could you—"

He stopped as abruptly as the movement in the bathroom did.

Sam yanked the curtain back enough to stick his head out, to the sight of Dean very busy washing his shirt out in the sink. "Dean—"

"I'll be done in a minute—finish your shower before you use up all the hot water."

He didn't want to leave it at that, but Dean couldn't have been clearer about dropping the matter if he'd written a sign and hung it around his neck. Sam drew back under the spray and wondered where on earth that had come from.

There were mornings he woke and, still drunk on sleep, expected for a moment to find her next to him. Or times he saw something he wanted to share with her, until it hit him again. The cycle of forgetting and remembering had slowed but not stopped in the three months since her death. And he knew his brother sometimes saw the disappointment and grief in his face, even if Dean never commented. Sam had never wanted Dean to feel it, though, to think he would prefer to be with Jess, even if some moments he did. Dean deserved better than that.

Quickly finishing his shower, Sam pulled on a pair of jeans and padded out into the room.

Dean was sitting at the table, dirt and blood flaking off him as he hunched over the laptop, staring at the screen. It painted his face a blood­less blue that unexpectedly made Sam wince.

"Dean, listen, man, I didn't mean—"

"I've been looking for where we should go next—I think I have something. You remember those suspicious deaths over in Connelly, Wis­consin?" He didn't even look up.

"Would you forget about the next job for a minute? What happened in there—I'm sorry, I was half-asleep and I just…I forget she's gone sometimes."

Dean quirked an odd smile at him. "There's nothing to be sorry for, okay? You miss her, I know that. I don't usually get mistaken for a girl, but…" He shrugged, smiled, everything in halves. "I've been called worse."

Yeah, even by Sam himself. Somehow, it didn't make him feel better. "That doesn't mean I don't want to be here with you," he said earnestly.

Dean grimaced. "Dude, we're not gettin' married." At Sam's expression, he sighed and sat up. "Don't make a bigger deal about it than it is, Sam. You lived with her, what, over a year?"

"Year and a half," Sam said, soft-toned.

"That's a long time," Dean answered easily, as if the two of them hadn't shared motel rooms for a dozen times that. He dipped his head to one side. "I'm surprised you haven't called me 'honey' yet."

Sam gave him a weak smile. "I never called her 'honey.' And before you ask," because Dean was already opening his mouth, "I'm not telling you what I did call her."

Dean subsided but still managed to look amused.

Sam ignored him and reached for his shirt, pulling it over his head. Most of his life he'd shared his space with someone: his father and Dean, then a few roommates, finally Jess. Shared a bathroom, shared meals, sometimes shared a bed. Jess had been the first one he'd really chosen to share his life with, and the hole she left sometimes felt like it would never fill.

But.

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_"What're you doing?" Sam rolled over in bed to stare at his brother, who was just settling down in front of the TV._

_"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm watch­ing _M*A*S*H_. I think it's the one with the crazy Turk." _

_"Dean, it's…" He squinted at the clock. "…almost three a.m." _

_One eyebrow went up. "Were you sleeping?"_

_Actually, he hadn't been, just had lain staring at the ceiling ever since the nightmare had woken him a half-hour earlier. But he'd been pretty sure Dean had been. _

_"You comin'? You're going to miss the part where Hawkeye tries to drug him." _

_Sam gave up and straggled out of his bed, set­tling on Dean's in a tired sprawl. He soon found himself smiling as Radar ended up getting drugged instead. "Hey, you remember the last time we saw this episode?"_

_Dean stared at him. "You remember that? I thought you were still high on those phero­mones or whatever that succubus hit you with." _

_"Yeah, well, one look at Dad and I sobered up fast," Sam said wryly. Then, after a minute, "I think this was a lot funnier when I was high." _

_Dean started laughing. It didn't take Sam long to join him. _

_He awoke that morning still stretched out in Dean's bed, Dean fast asleep in his, no memory of when he'd drifted off, but more well-rested than Sam had felt in a long time. _

_Not that he said a word, but he'd kinda figured that had been part of his brother's plan._

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_

Jess had known he was having nightmares but never pressed him about it. She hadn't known that side of him at all, nor shared enough com­mon ground in their past that he could even start to tell her. It hadn't occurred to him to be troubled by that until he'd met her family and her pleasant but distant siblings, and wondered how you could love any other way than fiercely.

Sam ached for the feel of her in his arms, for the future that might have been, for the past they did share. He missed her smile and the little gifts she left for him to cheer him up and the way she talked about the family she wanted to have. He still grieved for her every day.

But the missing chunk of his life he'd tried so hard to ignore those years at Stanford had clicked back into place the night Dean showed up in his living room, and Sam wouldn't have given that up for anything. Not even, God help him, Jess.

"Dean." He waited until his mud-encrusted, tired brother looked up at him. "I wouldn't trade you, either, but if you don't wash up soon, I am going to lock you outside."

Dean's mouth twitched. "Dream on, bro," was what he said, but his eyes expressed something completely different as he gathered up a change of clothes and headed for the bathroom. Sam smiled as the door banged shut after him.

Message received.

**The End**


End file.
